Metaverse real estate sales boom as businesses try to stake a claim in a 'risky' virtual world | WATCH - Property News AU/NZ | propertynoise.co.nz & propertynoise.com.au

PHOTO: Digital Land Grab: Metaverse Real Estate Prices Rose 700% In 2021

Rewards could be high, but so are the risks in hyped-up digital landscape.

Cosmos, a half-century-old greasy spoon known for its house omelette with bacon, ham, salami and sausage, isn’t exactly synonymous with cutting-edge technology.

But the new owner, David Minicucci, wants to bring his Montreal restaurant into the fledgling three-dimensional realm of the metaverse.

Minicucci envisions customers in different cities using virtual reality headsets to get together in a 3D version of the restaurant – even enjoying Cosmos’ signature dishes, prepared in kitchens set up across the country and delivered to your door.

“Just like we got onto UberEats or went on to other technology platforms that help us increase sales or get our name out there … it’s just the next level of that,” said Minicucci.

While the metaverse concept was coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash, the idea that interconnected, immersive virtual worlds could be the next phase of the internet has gotten a lot of attention lately – particularly after Facebook rebranded itself as Meta.

**Since Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, the idea of an interconnected virtual reality becoming the future of the internet has gotten a lot of media attention. (Eric Risberg/The Associated Press)**

For Minicucci, who has owned Cosmos since 2020, that meant purchasing a plot of virtual land in a digital world called Decentraland, paying the equivalent of $15,000 in cryptocurrency.

Metaverse real estate transactions worth millions

And he’s not the only one willing to spend money on land that doesn’t actually exist.

A recent report by the Centre for Technology, Finance and Entrepreneurship in the U.K. found that land transactions in the metaverse last year hit an average of $100-million US each month.